Continuing professional development and application of knowledge from research findings: a qualitative study of general dental practitioners

Key Points Highlights the pressures facing general dental practitioners' engagement with CPD. Questions the effectiveness and quality assurance processes of CPD. Emphasises some of the potential problems with translational clinical research. Objectives To explore general dental practitioners' opinions about continuing professional development (CPD) and potential barriers to translating research findings into clinical dental practice. Design Qualitative focus group and interviews. Subjects, setting and methods Four semi-structured interviews and a single focus group were conducted with 11 general dental practitioners in North East England. Outcome measure Transcripts were analysed using the constant comparative method to identify emergent themes. Results The key theme for practitioners was a need to interact with colleagues in order to make informed decisions on a range of clinical issues. For some forms of continuing professional development the value for money and subsequent impact upon clinical practice was limited. There were significant practice pressures that constrained the ability of practitioners to participate in certain educational activities. The relevance of some research findings and the formats used for their dissemination were often identified as barriers to their implementation in general dental practice. Conclusions There are a number of potential barriers that exist in general dental practice to the uptake and implementation of translational research. CPD plays a pivotal role in this process and if new methods of CPD are to be developed consideration should be given to include elements of structured content and peer review that engages practitioners in a way that promotes implementation of contemporary research findings.